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Mark Twain's Purpose In Corn Pone Opinions

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I believe that Mark Twain’s purpose in “Corn-pone Opinions”(1923) is to illuminate his audience on the idea of how humans are so influenced on what they are surrounded by that they do not form their own reasoning. According to Twain “We are creatures of outside influences as a rule we do not think, we only imitate”(32). In other words, Twain is saying that people are creatures that search for influences in their surroundings. Therefore, mimicking is something that humans do instead of trying to develop an independent thought on things. Twain also writes in his essay, “He must get his opinion from other people, he must reason out none for himself; he must have no first-hand views.”(31). Twain’s point is that man gets his positions not from

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